


River

by bendingwind



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-15
Updated: 2010-07-15
Packaged: 2017-11-06 00:16:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/412622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bendingwind/pseuds/bendingwind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack raises River.</p>
            </blockquote>





	River

0.

When a man shows up on his doorstep with a tiny crying bundle and a hideous bowtie, Jack’s two main thoughts are that he’s gotten another man pregnant only this time it’s caught up with him, and he must’ve been pissed out of his mind to sleep with someone so young. Then he recognizes that familiar gleeful smile under sad eyes, and he invites the Doctor into his home.

When he agrees to take River Song in and raise her, he stares down in awe at the Doctor’s future, nestled in his arms. There couldn’t be a less safe place.

1.

River is only a year old and she’s already the bossiest woman he’s ever met, he thinks as he sits back and watches her chubby hands arrange old jewelry. She is also entirely too fond of fancy things, and if this keeps up he’s going to have to return to conning just to make ends meet.

“Dad,” she says imperiously, tugging on his trousers. He picks her up and sets her on his lap.

“What, River?” he asks. He can’t quite bring himself to call her anything endearing, because he always destroys what he loves.

“I need a ruby ring.”

2.

The terrible twos were aptly named, he thinks, and it’ll be a miracle if Torchwood Four survives. River is a terror determined to explore the entire institute beyond their small flat in the back, and even though she won’t admit it, he’s pretty sure she’s learned to read somewhere. In the end, he comforts himself that she’ll probably see the warning signs and stay away from the worst places.

When she deliberately walks past one into a prison cell with a luckily peaceful alien, he gives up and gives her a tour of the entire place. For her own safety.

3.

When she’s three, River meets the Doctor for the first time she’ll be able to remember, and something in Jack wants to pull her away and shield her from this unfamiliar man in a horrible shade of tweed. She spends most of the time in her bedroom, and as it happens this Doctor doesn’t seem to realize who she is. Once he disappears, River asks Jack all about him, and Jack can only bring himself to say: _He’s just an old friend._

When he tells her stories of his adventures, he always leaves out the Doctor. For now, she’s his.

4.

Due to her small size, River is the first ever human being to find a way to ride the pterodactyl. She doesn’t bother to tell Jack what she’s up to—one day he simply walks into the main part of the building and it lands directly in front of him, a tiny curly-haired little girl on its back. He almost has a heart attack, and he wishes fervently that they’d just shot it instead of recapturing it and bringing it here.

He has a saddle and a harness made for her anyway, because he wants her to be strong.

5.

There ought to be a fairytale about him, cursed as he is. He was born such that he loves everyone he ever meets, and he gives whatever’s in him to save them. Every time he thinks he’s escaped it, someone pulls him back in. River, in particular, has that effect; his adoration for this bright little girl who is as much his daughter as any child he ever fathered reminds him of all he ever loved about other beings. Every adorable toothless grin she gives him makes him want to save the world, and he has forever to do it.

6.

“Daaad,” she whines as they walk up to her new school, “Stop holding my hand. I’m big now; I don’t need you to take care of me.” He only tightens his grip as he crouches down in front of her.

“Listen to me, sweetheart,” he says, and her eyes widen because he’s never called her anything but River before, “I know you don’t need me, but I need you. So let me hold your hand for now, alright? Please?”

She blinks at him for a moment before she nods and tightens her own grip, a smile spreading across her face.

7.

When she is seven, she wins the science fair by a landslide, even though she’s up against older children. Jack is irrationally proud when she brings home the prize ribbon, but also hurt that he didn’t get to help the only child he’s ever raised build something as simple as a science project. He didn’t even know the competition was taking place.

He pats her on the head and tells her she did a good job but she can’t keep presenting non-Earth technology at normal science fairs, and he makes arrangements for her to be transferred to a privately-funded school.

8.

River brings home her first boyfriend entirely too early for Jack’s liking, and he has to fight the urge to fall to his knees and beg her to please, _please_ spare him the worry of having a daughter who chases after boys.

“Play nice, and stay where I can see you,” he says instead. He watches as she crisply informs the boy of exactly what he is to do and where he is not to go(a door in the back in particular is forbidden), and he fights back a smirk as she orders the boy around ruthlessly. That’s his girl.

9.

River comes home one day with the assignment to start keeping a diary. Jack sends one of his Torchwood minions (one of the new ones that he can still call a minion, at least to himself) out to buy her one. Kirsten returns with a lovely blue book, and River scribbles black boxes on it with crayon. Jack freezes when he sees it for the first time.

“Where did you get that?” he asks, his voice a little desperate. He isn’t nearly ready to let her go.

“I made it,” she says, beaming. “I dream about it all the time.”

10.

At the tender age of ten, when she’s only just beginning to grow into that distinct but lovely nose of hers, she disappears for a week. Jack is completely frantic, and the entire Torchwood team drops everything to search for her. He’d like to call the police in, but he can’t exactly risk them venturing into Torchwood or accusing him of kidnapping or murder.

At the end of the week, when Jack is on the verge of total breakdown, she turns up on the doorstep with a dirty face and brilliant, reckless grin. She never does say where she went.

11.

River’s just bought her first bra (and _yes_ she dragged Jack into the lingerie section of the store with more than a little glee to help her chose out what she wanted), and he wonders what he’ll do when she finally grows up. Some part of him has always known the Doctor would come back for her, someday, and he hates the way she still hasn’t written anything in that eerie blue diary. It’s as if she knows as well, as if she’s only waiting for the adventure to begin. He’s more jealous than he can bear to think about.

12.

Her second boyfriend is no more able to stand up to her than her first, and he listens smugly outside of her bedroom door as she firmly puts the boy in his place when he suggests they make out.

“We’re just twelve,” she says, a little snidely, “You only want to do this so you can brag about it. Here’s an idea; you can _tell_ them we made out, but we don’t actually have to do it. Besides, do you _know_ how many germs are in a human mouth? It’s disgusting. Don’t make me explain it all to you again.”

13.

He drops the journal the first time he picks it up and finds that it’s no longer empty. Apparently she went off with the Doctor and a couple named Amy and Rory for an entire month, and of course she came back before Jack even noticed she was gone. He clenches his fists at the thought of her running off with the Doctor unannounced, and resolves to punch him in the face the next time he sees him.

Just the same, he knows that River was always going to leave him someday. She’s always belonged somewhere else, with her Doctor.

14.

Jack’s sense of death may be skewed irreparably, but it is ultimately the thing that allows him to make peace with the fact that River will someday leave. The Doctor will care for her with everything he has, and Jack is able to finally trust the Time Lord with the most precious person in the world to him.

He smiles as he waves River out of the door on her first date, “Curfew at midnight,” and he wonders if she will come home at all or if today will be the day the Doctor sweeps in to carry her away.

15.

On her fifteenth birthday, the Doctor openly appears for the third time since he handed a squalling baby girl to a rather confused Jack Harkness. He smiles and gives her a present (the TARDIS manual he once told Amy he threw into a supernova, because really it’s the same thing) and asks her how she’s been. She beams up at him as they talk, and Jack can already see that he’s lost her.

That night he leans against the wall outside her door and regrets that everyone must grow older and leave, quietly humming her favorite lullaby under his breath.

16.

When she’s sixteen, he’s in an explosion that would have ripped anyone else apart without a trace. When his body has slithered back together and he wakes on a table deep within Torchwood (the part she’s never seen) his first thought is of her. He yanks on a pair of trousers and dashes up to their flat and is punched in the face for his efforts.

Once she finally realizes it actually is him, she lets him hold her as she sobs into his shoulder, and he shushes her and promises that he’s her father and he’ll always be there.

17.

“I’m going to go with him this time,” she tells Jack the fourth time the Doctor comes to visit. “I’ll come back to visit.” She hugs him quickly but tightly, and he fights the urge to hold her and never let her go as she turns and dashes away. His arms are left open and aching, and his emotions waver between jealousy of her and anger at the Doctor for taking her away. He is and always will be the one left behind.

At the door, she turns back to him. “I love you Dad!” she calls, and he cries.

* * *


End file.
